It's Xmas shopping season and there are kids to spoil, but will you also be poisoning them?There were some scary headlines this year about tainted and toxic imported products. They made you wonder if your kids would get lead poisoning from their toys, if pet food would kill your dogs and cats or if your family was about to become a traffic statistic because of defective tires on your car.
Nov, 27, 2007
Muses about anti-war protests
--------------------------------------------
Concerning the rioters at the shipyard in Tacoma. Where is the the National Guard unit that guarded Kent State when we need them?
Stu Hyatt Bellingham
How strange... the Editors of the Herald were so concerned about civility when the Mayors campaign got mean. But apparently wishing to see college students gunned down in the streets isn't a problem... as long as it's put in the form of a question.To:Executive Editor Julie Shirley, Opinion Editor Scott Ayers
Julie & Scott,
I'm having a great deal of trouble working out what the Herald's policy on advocating murder in 'Letters To The Editor' is.
You printed a letter from Stu Hyatt which was titled "Muses about anti-war protests ". Mr. Hyatt says: "Concerning the rioters at the shipyard in Tacoma. Where is the the National Guard unit that guarded Kent State when we need them?"
That is unambiguously calling for the protesters to be gunned down. Putting it into the form of a question doesn't alter the fact that he is advocating murder.
A recent Herald "Our View" disapproved of the protests, saying: "The Friday protest was peaceful, unlike the recent thuggery in Olympia, where protesters have been attempting to block shipments of military equipment."
So is the criteria that it's alright to advocated killing people that the Herald Editors don't like?
An Opinion Blog entry titled "Peace must be made around Northwood Casino" said: "I had held out hope that once it became obvious that the Nooksack Tribe’s Northwood Casino was going to open that citizens opposed to it would give up their sometimes nasty fight to fend it off."
Since you disapprove of the continued protests of the Casino, would you print a letter that said; "Concerning the rioters at the Northwood Casino. Where is Sitting Bull and the warriors he brought to the Little Bighorn when we need them?"?
Scrubbing the Oregon GOP
Amy Langdon
Executive DirectorOregon Republican Party
Dear Mrs. Langdon,
I writing to alert you to a breach of security at your website. As you recall, yesterday, I wrote you an email asking if you've made any progress in achieving the goal set out in Plank 7.5 of the Oregon GOP platform, the one that states:7.5 Inter-jurisdictional agency cooperation shall be improved for more effective joint action against organized crime, drug cartels, terrorist networks and the Oregon Democratic Party.Or at least it stated that before I sent my email to you. It's been changed since then. Someone's removed the last part, the words "and the Oregon Democratic Party." Certainly, it wasn't you. The Oregon GOP would never edit a plank that had been approved by delegates to its state convention. That'd be anti-democratic (so to speak). ............
Heterosexually yours in a chaste, biblically appropriate, and Larry Craig kind of way,full post
Gen. JC Christian, patriot
In talking about congestion pricing on my show Saturday night, I couldn’t contain a brief outburst over how our local media and political elite continue to take seriously the Discovery Institute’s transportation proposals in light of its embarrassing role in promoting Creationism Intelligent Design. My frustration stems not simply from the fact that Intelligent Design is ridiculous anti-science, or that it is part of a well planned and executed multi-year campaign to undermine science education in the US at a time we face growing global economic competition… but that it has been promoted in such a shamelessly dishonest manner.
The Discovery Institute has proven again and again that it makes no distinction between scholarship and propaganda, and that there is no ethical boundary it will not cross in the interest of foisting its Christianist agenda on the American people. This blatant disregard for the most basic rigors of academia — or even fair play — was highlighted recently by a virologist/blogger who discovered that DI fellows had stolen and manipulated a Harvard University/XVIVO video for use in their own presentations, without attribution, permission or license.
Here is the original Harvard/XVIVO video, “The inner life of a cell”, with its scientifically accurate narration intact:
And here is a clip from a Discovery Institute presentation that features an excerpt of the video, now redubbed and retitled “The Cell as an Automated City.” Notice how the presenter describes the video as “state of the art computer animation,” implying that it is somehow the work of the institute:
As ERV points out in his her post, this isn’t just a naive case of copyright infringement. The Discovery Institute has plenty of lawyers on staff and on retainer, so they sure as hell know that scrubbing the Harvard/XVIVO copyright and credits off the video is not only dishonest, but illegal.
Maybe they think it is ‘okay’ because they gave the animation a new title (’Inner life of a cell’ became ‘The cell as an automated city’) and an extraordinarily unprofessional new narration (alternate alternate title– ‘ Big Gay Al takes a tour of a cell!’). Harvard/XVIVOs narration, all of the science, is whisked away and replaced with a ’surrealistic lilliputian realm’– ‘robots’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘circuitry’, ‘nano moters’, ‘UPS labels’. Maybe they think it is ‘okay’ because they turned all of Harvards science into ‘MAGIC!’
Hmm. From my point of view, as a virologist and former teaching assistant, this isn’t just copyright infringement. This is theft and plagiarism. Taking someone else’s work without their consent, manipulating it without their consent, pretending it supports ID Creationists distorted views of reality, and presenting it as DI’s work.
ERV further points out that if the DI fellows responsible for this were at his her university, they would be expelled for their plagiarism.
But this is just business as usual at the Discovery Institute, and it raises a question: if the Discovery Institute can’t be trusted to produce independent academic scholarship on its signature issue, Intelligent Design, how can its Cascadia Center be trusted to produce independent academic scholarship on regional transportation planning? Of course, it can’t, and the media, business and political elites who ignore the institute’s established track record of distorting scholarship and science in the single-minded pursuit of its own private agenda, are little more than willful dupes.
Our region’s transportation planning is too important to be trusted to a faux “think tank” with such a shameful and embarrassing record, and every time one of our local media outlets unskeptically cites one of its reports or recommendations, it grants the Discovery Institute credibility it simply does not deserve. Unlike a real think tank, the Discovery Institute produces “scholarship” to support its existing agenda, not the other way around, and thus it cannot and should not be considered a trusted partner in planning our region’s transportation future.
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This post contains 13% of your daily recommended dose of irony -
Rachel Maddow's Campaign Asylum: Meet the STRATEGISTS!
Barring an extremely unlikely late entry by a dark horse candidate (no, Al probably isn't running), the roster of Presidential hopefuls is more or less set. Rachel looks at the "brain trusts" driving the campaigns of the major GOP contenders. The list of esteemed advisors includes a Blackwater war profiteer, an Ex-Quayle advisor, the last of the Neocons, and George "Say hello to Macaca" Allen. With friends like these...
Ok., so it's a 'made you look' headline, at least I'm not an ass in an ape suit. Industries Paid for Top Regulators' TravelYou can check ToyInfo.org for information about toy safety... it's sponsored by the Toy Industry Association and they might not being lying, at least not as much as Nancy Nord and the rest of the Bush Administration.
Two Heads of Product Safety Agency Accepted Trips From Manufacturer Groups
By Elizabeth WilliamsonWashington Post Staff Writer Friday, November 2, 2007; Page A01
The chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children's furniture industries and others they regulate, according to internal records obtained by The Washington Post. Some of the trips were sponsored by lobbying groups and lawyers representing the makers of products linked to consumer hazards.
The records document nearly 30 trips since 2002 by the agency's acting chairman, Nancy Nord, and the previous chairman, Hal Stratton, that were paid for in full or in part by trade associations or manufacturers of products ranging from space heaters to disinfectants. The airfares, hotels and meals totaled nearly $60,000, and the destinations included China, Spain, San Francisco, New Orleans and a golf resort on Hilton Head Island, S.C.
Notable among the trips -- commonly described by officials as "gift travel" -- was an 11-day visit to China and Hong Kong in 2004 by Stratton, then chairman. The$11,000 trip was paid for by the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory, an industry group based in an office suite in Bethesda whose only laboratories are in Asia. (more)
Maliki's public feud with Sunni official highlights Iraq's divisions
By Bobby Caina Calvan - McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thursday, November 22, 2007
BAGHDAD — The sniping is incessant, the skirmishes bruising. For months, the verbal warfare between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, and his Sunni vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi, has been escalating.
Now Iraqi politicians and American diplomats and analysts fear that the very public feuding between two of Iraq's most influential leaders will doom even the minimal hopes that exist for progress on a host of key benchmarks — such as holding provincial elections and equitably sharing oil revenues. ...
.... Despite a dramatic decline in violence, there's been no sign of reconciliation among Iraq's leaders and no progress on many key issues, according to U.S. and Iraqi assessments. Without progress, the open warfare between Iraq's many factions that seems to have eased in recent weeks, is likely to resurge, once the United States begins reducing the number troops in Iraq. ...
Zogby/Lear Center Poll: Extensive National Survey on Politics and Entertainment
UTICA, New York – Rush Limbaugh touts himself – mostly in jest – as having “talent on loan from God” and credits that talent for his huge listenership and dominant perch atop the world of talk radio in America, but an extensive five–month polling and research project by ZogbyInternational and the Norman Lear Center at the University of SouthernCalifornia’s Annenberg School shows his popularity may have more to do withpre–set beliefs in the minds of his listeners than with his presentation skills.
Actually, Limbaugh was ahead of the curve in recognizing the source of his ratings success. He often says it is because he is merely confirming what listeners already believed, not because of his powers of persuasion. ...
... They don’t like a lot of things on TV, but their two favorite channels are Fox and Fox News. ...
House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, supports plans for a special session.
...
Sen. Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said the Senate is supportive of a much more comprehensive change to property tax code.
"The 1 percent limit has been in place for five years and there are still people out there who are struggling with property taxes," she said, adding that she would have preferred to wait to work on a more thorough process to set the right limit. "We are letting the governor take the lead on this."
...
I want the anti-tax, "government-is-always-bad" people who clamour for arbitrary inflexible limits on taxes, instead of a reasoned discussion of state policies and goals, to own the ramifications. No blaming "the government" for grid-lock when there isn't enough money to build new hiways or rapid transit. No blaming "the government" when there's no funds to hire more police to keep tabs on sex-offenders. No blaming "the government" when a sink hole swallows your Hummer.
Despite its name, the primary purpose of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was not to facilitate trade among separate sovereign societies. Rather, it was to promote an integrated continental economy and establish the rules to govern it.
As a former foreign minister of Mexico once remarked, NAFTA was “an agreement for the rich and powerful in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, an agreement effectively excluding ordinary people in all three societies.” It should, therefore, be no surprise that NAFTA rules protect the interests of large corporate investors while undercutting workers’ rights, environmental protections, and democratic accountability. Hence, NAFTA should be seen not as a stand-alone treaty, but as part of a long-term campaign by the conservative business interests in all three countries to rip up their respective domestic social contract.
Says Congress moving forward
EDITOR, The Tribune:
One year after the 2006 elections, I thought it might be helpful to update you on some of the new Congress’ accomplishments.
To address concerns about ethics and the culture of corruption, the House passed tough reforms to tighten reporting rules for campaign contributions and ban gifts and meals from lobbyists. To address our homeland security needs, we passed the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations to help prevent future terrorist attacks and make America safer.
This Congress made the single largest investment in college financial aid since the 1944 GI Bill, boosting aid for students and cutting interest rates on subsidized student loans in half – all at no new cost to taxpayers. For example, the College Cost Reduction Act will make higher education more affordable for over 4,500 students at Western Washington University and Bellingham Technical College alone.
To help many of the 16,000 veterans in Whatcom County, the House and Senate passed the largest increase in VA funding in 77 years. Our bill would give the Veterans Administration resources to hire more qualified doctors and nurses, reduce waiting times for medical appointments and continue providing essential services to local veterans. With more veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to ensure that all our veterans get the high quality care they need and deserve.
We have done all this without adding to the nation’s fiscal deficit. In fact, this Congress has earned the fiscally responsible label by sticking to strict “pay-as-you-go” rules.
In the coming year, we will keep working to provide opportunities for family farms and small businesses to thrive. We will keep working to support our service men and women, end U.S. military involvement in Iraq’s civil war and refocus on fighting terrorists. We will push the President to sign our comprehensive energy bill into law to help make America energy independent. And we will keep working to pass legislation to provide health care coverage to 10 million children across the country, and extend health care coverage to thousands of kids in Northwest Washington who need it.
Congressman Rick Larsen
Second District
Northwest Washington
In recent years the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) has been a controversial rightwing player in Washington State elections. The funding structure of BIAW's political actions have always seemed questionable to me.B'ham groups suing Building Industry Association
Two Bellingham groups are filing a class action lawsuit, accusing the state's largest builders' lobby of taking money from small businesses to support politically conservative candidates. Bellingham's "A-1 Builders" along with the non-profit group "ReSources for Sustainable Living" accuse the Building Industry Association of Washington of skimming millions-of-dollars off the top of its Workers Compensation insurance refunds. A spokesperson for the B-I-A says its members know how the association spends its money.
"A refugee is someone who isn’t really welcome in any country- including their own... especially their own."and this as she describes standing in line with other Iraqi refugees.....interesting thinking of Sunnis, Shia and Kurds standing together, just like they lived before our attack, invasion and occupation. heartbreaking....i am sure i would not be as brave and strong as her.
........"We spent the four hours standing, crouching, sitting and leaning in the line. The sun beat down on everyone equally Sunnis, Shia and Kurds alike. E. tried to convince the aunt to faint so it would speed the process up for the family, but she just gave us a withering look and stood straighter. People just stood there, chatting, cursing or silent. It was yet another gathering of Iraqis – the perfect opportunity to swap sad stories and ask about distant relations or acquaintances."
freedom is on the march.....
read Riverbend's full post here
www.ourfuture.org is the home of the Campaign for America's Future. Imported toys from China with dangerous levels of lead end up in U.S. stores. Yet, Nancy Nord, the acting head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, opposes efforts to strengthen her agency. Plus, she's taken trips paid for by the industries she regulates. It's clear: Nancy Nord must resign.
What's the bizarre philosophy that causes the Bush Administration to ignore its duty to enforce consumer protection laws and allow toxic toys to come from China to America?
Erin Burnett on MSNBC's "Hardball", August 10, 2007:
A lot of people like to say, uh, scaremonger about China, right? A lot of politicians, and I know you talk about that issue all the time. I think people should be careful what they wish for on China. Ya know, if China were to revalue it’s currency or China is to start making say, toys that don’t have lead in them or food that isn’t poisonous, their costs of production are going to go up and that means prices at Wal-Mart here in the United States are going to go up too. So, I would say China is our greatest friend right now, they’re keeping prices low and they’re keeping the prices for mortgages low,
too.”
Rove Decries ‘Nutty’ ‘Vitriolic’ Bloggers Who Spew ‘Bad Words’
Yesterday, ThinkProgress attended a Yahoo-sponsored Citizen 2.0 event in Washington, DC, at which Karl Rove discussed the intersection of politics and the Internet. Rove lamented the loss of civility in politics on the web, but then proceeded to use his speech as a partisan bashing of the netroots. According to Rove, bloggers are “nutty,” “vitriolic,” and “kooks.” The Washington Times reported on his remarks:
“The Web has given angry and vitriolic people more of a voice in publicdiscourse,” said Mr. Rove, who served as one of President Bush’s top strategists until he resigned this past summer, and is a noted technology nut.
“People in the past who have been on the nutty fringe of political life,who were more or less voiceless, have now been given an inexpensive and easily accessible soapbox, a blog,” Mr. Rove said during a speech about politics and the Web at the Willard InterContinental, a hotel just blocks from his former place of employment.
...(more)
What this means is that the left blogosphere, the netroots, scares the bejeezus out of Karl Rove and his Republican Party. Unlike the Rights online echo chambers, the netroots is made up of real live independent activists.
The Right has taken its marching orders from either Republican Headquarters or one of its religious demagogue allies.
There's nothing centralizes about the netroots, it's a movement, sprung from millions of disgruntled citizens turned activist. You can never tell what we might dig into or where we might pop up.
Rove's comments are just the latest in an ongoing whine and snivel-fest. The Rights dream of controlling the flow of information to Americans has been squashed like a bug on a windshield. The days when snotty Whitehouse aids can talk of creating their own reality are long gone. Tom DeLays 'permanent Republican majority' was just a mirage in the glare of the Texas sun.
All that's left for Karl Rove to do is complain about how F'ing awful we are.
Oh yeah, before Bill O' come shrieking by... an extra early merry xmas to you all.
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Everyone should look over the washclean.org website and think about it. With Publicly Funded Campaigns, anyone who was willing to put in the effort could run for office, no special interests or insider connections needed. Plus, any candidate would have a credible chance of winning, as long as their ideas appealed to a majority of voters.
Whatcom County County District 2
Sam Crawford – Nearly 64.6* percent of contributions come from businesses, PACs and individuals involved in construction, development companies and realty.SOURCE: B'ham Herald - Politics blog
**ALERT!!**
The Building Industry Association (BIA) has launched an attack ad! (Listen to Ken's Response on KGMI radio!) This national lobbying group has mailed a caricature of Ken's supporters to voters, labeling them "out of area" groups promoting a "national agenda." Their so-called "evidence" is a picture of a woman stepping off of the bus during a recent doorbelling event--in fact, the woman is Sarah Jaynes, and she was born and raised in Lynden--the heart of Ken's district!The BIA, itself a developer and realtor lobbying group with their own national agenda of limiting government regulations, wants to subdivide, pave, and sell Whatcom County to the highest bidder. DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT.
Keep up the fight for working farms, livable communities, and efficient government. See you on Saturday!
The BIA put Bellingham Mayoral candidate Dan Pike's name on their mailer, but Dan Pike says:
Unfortunately, candidates have no control and no say over independent expenditures. The BIA has decided that I am the mayoral candidate of their choice in this election--which is probably tough for them in a race with two progressives--and added my name to their mailer as a result. The cynic in me suggests that they may also be trying to capitalize on my progressive credentials to broaden the appeal of Sam Crawford and Chris Hatch.
For what it's worth, I endorsed Ken Mann for County Council, the only race I made an endorsement in.
I hope this clarifies that I in no way approve of the mailer or candidates, and also had no say or knowledge in its production and
promulgation.
Pike's Whatcom Dem board comments:
I want to provide the following to indicate my own position regarding the BIA endorsement:
First, both Dan McShane and I interviewed for the BIA endorsement, but on thinking the matter over, I turned it down. We don't know what Dan McShane would have done, because to my knowledge he was not offered the endorsement.
When the BIA indicated to me that they viewed me as the better of two imperfect choices, I turned down their proposed endorsement because while I appreciate their green building initiative, I have disagreed with their broader agenda, and have been disturbed by some of their past tactics.
I am disturbed also at the manner in which they gathered the photos used in the mailer. In fact, someone used that occasion to target my own campaign, by 'spoofing' a threatening letter to the photographer so it appeared to be sent by me. Herald reporter Sam Taylor talks about this tonight in his blog: http://blogs.bellinghamherald.co...1&
pb=1#comments .Unfortunately, candidates have no control and no say over independent expenditures. The BIA has decided that I am the mayoral candidate of their choice in this election--which is probably tough for them in a race with two progressives--and added my name to their mailer as a result. The cynic in me suggests that they may also be trying to capitalize on my progressive credentials to broaden the appeal of Sam Crawford and Chris Hatch.
For what it's worth, I endorsed Ken Mann for County Council, the only race I made an endorsement in.
I hope this clarifies that I in no way approve of the mailer or candidates, and also had no say or knowledge in its production and promulgation.
The GOP had their chance to government, to implement their 'conservative' ideas and proved they are incompetent, corrupt and unworthy of the trust given to them by conservative and moderate Americans.A Year Ahead, Republicans Face Tough Political Terrain
October 31, 2007
A year before the 2008 presidential election, most major national opinion trends decidedly favor the Democrats. Discontent with the state of the nation is markedly greater than it was four years ago. President Bush's approval rating has fallen from 50% to 30% over this period. And the Democrats' advantage over the Republicans on party affiliation is not only substantially greater than it was four years ago, but is the highest recorded during the past two decades.
The public continues to express more confidence in the Democratic Party than in the Republican Party as being able to bring about needed change, to govern in an honest and ethical way and to manage the federal government. The Democratic Party's advantages on these traits are much wider than during the last presidential campaign. Moreover, they remain about as large as they were just prior to the 2006 midterm election, in spite of rising public discontent with the Democrat-led Congress.The voters' issues agenda also appears to benefit the Democrats. Along with Iraq, the economy, health care and education rate as the most important issues for voters. Compared with the 2004 campaign, fewer voters now place great importance on the issues that have animated Republican political unity in recent years – including gay marriage, abortion and terrorism. ...(more)
